Contagious

I.

Once upon a time, I was the girl who hated seeing dead bodies.

It was my duty to save people, to present them with a miracle, to save their family years of heartache. Watching a patient being wheeled out under a blank white sheet not only killed a part of me, but it embedded a deep anxiety in me. I wasn't a perfect person; I wasn't a perfect doctor, and there were times when I hated myself for being a perfectionist. There was always something I could have done better, something that would have saved the now lifeless body that still managed to accuse me of failing at my job.

But now? Now I survived, quite literally, on seeing dead bodies. Murdered dead bodies, to be exact. My job was now to figure out who killed who and why. My new job has given me more spare time than I ever had when I was a doctor, but with spare time comes a big. Stupid. Void.

I pushed Major so far away, I'm not sure there's ever any hope in repairing what we were. Every time I thought there was hope for us, something new would shove its ugly head between us. And now that he's working for Max Rager…I'm not even sure if he's the same Major anymore.

My mom and Evan are still pissed at me. I don't blame them. From the outside, they saw that I had a chance to save Evan's life and I chose to let him die. I would be mad at me, too.

I scared Peyton off. She's finally back in town. Ravi gives me some updates when I ask, but it's quite clear that Peyton tells him not to talk about her to me. I thought she would surprise me on my birthday, but that was just false hope. No one showed up. Well...except Gilda. Funny, she's the person I know least about, yet she's the one I feel closest to right now.

Except when—you know, I eat the brains of some dead person and become them.

"Got a cold one for ya, hot off the press!"

Ravi's booming voice made Liv jump. She was in the backroom watching the news, though only half paying attention. She looked for chances to catch Peyton, hoping to hear a word or two that she would say to the public but would be secretly directed at Liv. But so far, Peyton was nothing but strictly professional, as per usual.

Liv glanced around the bend, just barely catching the EMT guys leaving the morgue. Ravi took control of the gurney, wheeling the covered body under a bright light and beside his metal table full of medical tools.

"Let me guess," she started, standing up and shoving her hands deep into the pockets of her white lab coat, "money, sex, and lies."

"Is there ever any other motive for murder?" Ravi asked sarcastically, snapping on his surgical gloves.

Liv pulled two gloves out of the box, "Just promise you'll let me know if the victim was a sexaholic before I do anything I'll regret."

"Can't promise anything; you'll be the one to find that out all on your own," he grabbed the top of the sheet, ready to reveal the body, when he shot her a look of disgust, "Just—try not to bring anyone here if that happens—," he frowned, "unsanitary and all that."

"I'll try my best to keep it in my pants at work," Liv shot back before taking it upon herself to pull the sheet down. She forgot to suppress a gasp of surprise when she saw the female victim's face.

"Audrey Allen. Thirty. Suffered multiple facial fractures; broken nasal bone, broken jaw, severe swelling and bruising around the eyes and mouth," Ravi rambled off what her saw physically. His finger moved along the body's throat, "Seems as though she got quite a punch to the throat. Wind pipe is completely collapsed."

"She was found in her home like this?" Liv asked, wanting to look away from the face that could hardly even be called that anymore, yet feeling compelled to stare.

"Uh-uh. Bushes. What bushes? I have not a clue, you'll have to either talk to your detective friend or eat dinner if you want more info."

Liv sighed. She had a feeling that this one might turn into a painful experience. The woman, Audrey Allen, was clearly abused and beaten to death.

…Liv was thinking brain stew. It was definitely a night for some comfort food.

An hour later, Liv was sitting down at the lunch table with a bowl full of beef broth, jalapenos, hot sauce, and brains. Ravi sat across from her with a peanut butter sandwich.

"So," Liv started, her spoon full, "what are the two things you can tell me about Peyton today?"

Ravi picked at the crust and it was obvious to Liv how uncomfortable these conversations always made him, "She ate a cup of vanilla yogurt the other day. Greek, if I remember correctly."

Liv had to shove a spoonful of brains in her mouth to keep from snapping. She didn't understand how her two best friends from two different parts of her life were able to become best friends and remove her from their club. Not two months ago, she had the largest group of friends she ever had. Was it something she said, or was it just her personality?

"I asked for two things," she finally said when she trusted her voice to be even.

He waved his hand as if to dismiss it, but knew he couldn't get off the hook that easily, so settled with, "She bought new fuzzy pink slippers."

Liv looked taken aback, "Pink?"

"Yes, pink," he replied shortly, taking a bite of his sandwich but continuing to talk with his mouth full, "Let's talk about what you've been doing. See any good movies? Meet any new potential zombie lovers? You know, the usual?"

Liv ate another big bite, "Your sarcasm is sometimes hard to swallow."

"Says the girl who swallows brains."

"Says the guy I convinced my best friend to go out with and then kicking me to the curb," Liv replied shortly.

Ravi stared at her for a long moment before leaning forward, "Wait a minute, are we being serious here? 'Cause I had on my joking face, you can't just switch like that on me."

Liv pulled her lips tight, "Welcome to my world." She wiped off her mouth with a napkin and stood up, ready to clean out her bowl. She had been so on edge that she finished her whole meal in under six bites and didn't even enjoy it (not that enjoyed meals these days, anyway).

"Wait, Liv, get back here and talk to me," Ravi said almost pathetically. He hated it when Liv got upset with him and though there was hardly anything he could do, he wanted to at least try to get her to lighten up.

Liv stopped dead in her tracks at his words.

"Get back here and talk to me!" A large man with angry eyes, a dark beard, and a wife beater yelled in a burly, dangerous voice.

Audrey blinked rapidly and shook her head, "No, please, just let me leave. I promise I'll never bother you again just—."

"You think I'm gonna just let you leave!" he charged at Audrey with no warning, shoving her to the ground and standing over her.

Covering her face with her arms, Audrey tried to defend herself from the man that was swinging his arm back.

"NO!"

His fist came down on her face.

"Liv!"

Liv's body flinched hard as she came back to reality, her breath coming in short, quick gasps.

"Where'd you go, what'd you see?" Ravi was asking, his hands gripping her upper arms in fear she was going to collapse.

Blinking back her tears, Liv tried to focus on Ravi's concerned face to put her back in the moment, "I know what the guy looks like that did this to her."

"Do you have any leads on who murdered Audrey Allen?" Liv asked Clive as she was still walking to his desk.

"And good evening to you, too, Miss Moore," Clive greeted with feigned professionality. He handed Liv a folder when she reached him, "And no, we have no leads yet. When we found her in the bushes outside of the apartments—you know those huge, rundown apartments on Third?—she had ammonia and rubbing alcohol poured all over her. No fingerprints could be detected. We have no idea who threw her there or why."

Liv flipped through the small file. She didn't see anything she didn't know already, "I think it was her husband…maybe boyfriend. Possibly ex, I think she was trying to leave him."

Clive stood up quickly though tried to keep his calm demeanor, "You saw him?"

She nodded, "In a vision. I don't know his name. I remember what he looks like if you wanna go fetch your sketch artist," Liv suddenly looked alarmed, "I mean—please? If you want. I don't want to cause you any trouble, I just thought maybe it was a good idea that—I know you're in charge, you do what you know is best."

Clive stared at her strangely, quickly snatching the file from her. He jumped when Liv flinched and covered her face, "What is wrong with you?"

She peeked at him through her spread fingers before realizing what she was doing. She quickly dropped her hands and gripped onto the strap of her purse, "Sorry. I'm just a bit…tired tonight."

"Well, maybe after you give your description of the guy, you should go home and get some rest."

Liv nodded, "Right." She closed her eyes briefly before turning away from him, anxiety rushing through her at the small movement. To her left, a lead detective marched over to another detective's desk and slammed three large folders down on the floor, "What the hell is this?!"

She held her breath as another vision attacked her.

"What the hell is this shit!?" The large man bellowed as he held a floppy journal in his right hand. He waved it rapidly, Audrey squinting her eyes though trying hard not to turn away from him.

"I-it's just some poetry I write, it's nothing t—."

"Goddamn right it's nothing! And who the hell is—," the man flipped angrily through the journal, though it didn't take him long to find a page he wanted. He turned the book harshly toward her, but Audrey recoiled away from it, "Who the hell is this B—."

Liv was blown from her vision when someone collided into her. She saw that it was a handcuffed man trying to fight off the detective that was leading him to the interrogation room.

She couldn't quite recall what was so strange about her first Audrey vision, but now that she had her second, she realized that it was almost like watching a film from the sixties when Technicolor was first introduced. The colors seemed grainy and distorted. Only different shades of red—or maybe violet—and some sort of teal existed.

Liv turned back toward Clive, "I think Audrey was colorblind."

Clive nodded, "I suppose that information could come in handy. I'll let you know if anything comes up."

When Liv finally made it home, it was past nine and Gilda wasn't home. It was well enough, she didn't feel like talking about her day at the moment.

After all, nothing new. Major and Peyton still aren't talking to me, Ravi's barely talking, and I'm having colorblind visions.

Liv wasn't an eye doctor, but she remembered studying a little bit about colorblindness in a college class. There was more than one type and very rarely did anyone see in just black and white. And Liv found she didn't mind seeing through the eyes of Audrey (well, except only seeing that ugly brute of a man). It was like living in an old movie. Like Breakfast at Tiffany's. Or Mary Poppins. ….Or the cover of Psycho.

There were shades of red that she wasn't quite used to seeing, and because they were so unusual, they were beautiful.

She grabbed her laptop and headed to her bedroom. She changed into her pajamas before settling down on the covers to do some research. As it turned out, Audrey had tritanopia,

"People with reduced blue sensitivity have difficulty identifying differences between blue and yellow, violet and red and blue and green. To these people the world appears as generally red, pink, black, white, gray and turquoise," Liv read aloud, "Hm…red and turquoise seem like chic colors to see."

When she got tired of reading what little information there seemed to be on Audrey's rare form of colorblindness, Liv thought she'd try her hand at researching Audrey Allen online. She went to Facebook first. She found one Audrey Allen, but she was some sort of model that looked nothing like the Audrey she knew. Knew.

She went to Google for help. She found all the model Audrey's Twitter, Instagram, Playboy photos…then finally she came across a Myspace page that seemed different than all the other pages. Upon opening the page, the profile picture showed a brunette woman standing between two people who looked like they could have been her mother and father. It was difficult to tell from the one photo, but Audrey seemed happy. Then again, the last update was in November 2002.

Liv smiled at Audrey's pictures and her snarky little comments she left on some.

"Never leave a cat to do a squirrel's job," with a picture of a grey cat staring at a squirrel with a mouse in its mouth.

"Jumping off the edge of the world!" with a picture of Audrey jumping from large concrete letters that spelled WORLD.

Audrey seemed like such a carefree girl in her late teens. What happened to her that she ended up with such an asshole? And why did she stay? Allen was her maiden name, so it didn't appear that she was married to the guy.

Unless his last name happened to be Allen, too….which would be super weird….

But then she came across a picture that made her heart stop. Even more than an undead girl's heart could already stop.

"Love of my life." Was the simple caption. Audrey was laughing, her eyes closed in a glorious moment as the love of her life placed his forehead against her cheek and laughed with her.

…

"Blaine?"

Liv's body tensed as a memory was jogged.

"What color is this?" Audrey asked Blaine, a teenager of about seventeen or eighteen. She held up a flower that appeared to be salmon in color.

Blaine smiled and took the flower from her before leaning forward and sticking it behind her ear. The petals could still be seen from Audrey's peripheral vision.

"It's yellow."

"Yellow's my favorite color," Audrey responded, leaning in toward Blaine, "Because I can see it like no one else can."

Blaine stared, mesmerized, before smirking in a way that was signature, "You ever consider writing poetry?"

Audrey shook her head.

"Well, there's nothing I fear more than unrealized potential. Go for it," his words felt like diamonds and his eyes shone like devotion.

"Okay."

"Promise?"

Audrey giggled and held up a camera, "Can I get a picture first?"

Liv breathed heavily as the vision came to an end. There was a brief warmth that spread through her that was hard to come by these days, but it was so fleeting it just made her wonder if she ate too many jalapenos with her brains. She had no idea.

But one thing she did know, she had the sudden inexplicable urge to see Blaine.